NASA Expect Low-Energy Nuclear Reactors to Replace Domestic Boilers

NASA has suggested that household hot water boilers could soon be replaced by small nuclear reactors. They do not refer to nuclear fission reactors, used in traditional power plants; nor nuclear fusion reactors, eagerly researched and regarded as a hugely powerful source of energy for the future; instead they believe that low-energy nuclear reactors (LENR) will be used.

Joseph Zawodny, a senior research analyst with NASA’s Langley Research Centre, spoke of the LENR device and said that “it has the demonstrated ability to produce excess amounts of energy, cleanly, without hazardous ionizing radiation, without producing nasty waste.

The easiest implementation of this would be for the home. You would have a unit that would replace your water heater. And you would have some sort of cycle to derive electrical energy from that.”

NASA’s LENR device fires a slow moving neutron into the element nickel. Upon absorbing the extra neutron the nickel becomes unstable causing the neutron to split into an electron and proton, and reverting to a stable state.

Bob Silberg, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wrote that “where it once had an extra neutron, making it an unstable isotope of whatever element it was, it now has an extra proton instead, which makes it a more stable isotope of a different element (copper). This process releases energy which, hypothetically, can be used to generate electricity.”

The LENR reactor would replace the boiler in a house and heat the water directly. An extra system could then be added to use the heat to produce electricity.

Research has also suggested that carbon could be used instead of nickel, and that it would be turned into nitrogen. Zawodny stated, “I don’t know what could possibly be cleaner than that. You’re not sequestering carbon, you’re totally removing carbon from the system.”

Who ARE you Walker? That is the most prescient write up of the E-cat story i have read to date. Your research into big oil asset dumping is extremely interesting and i have wondered if there was any reaction to the breaking of this story by big oil. Thanks for posting you research and thoughts!

David Fuchs on July 29 2013 said:

pacman - "but, ... but, what would become of the utility companies...?"

There was once this company called Kodak ...

Walker on March 06 2013 said:

With the head scientist at NASA Langley research saying LENR is confirmed along with confirmation from Labs at Toyota, Mitsubishi, and STMicroelectronics as well as Amaco, the US Navy research labs, along with a course on the Fleischmann/Pons effect at MIT and working replications of the Celani reactor at academic sites around the world as well as hundreds of confirmed and peer reviewed experimental paper, that professors and Nobel prize winners are saying it is real and that Patents now being granted, the case that LENR is a real working system of cold fusion is proven.

http://www.lenrproof.com

The fact that oil companies like BP, Shell, Exon, and a host of others are all selling off their oil fields around the world, that Petrobas who spent a decade to aquire the controling interest in a texas oil refinery, now are desperate to sell it at a loss.

The fact that Nuclear power plant owners are cancelling their big investment projects, and preparing to close their plants.

It is well known that the major players are on a divestment and diversification strategy. Many are giving various excuses, but when you check them they do not pan out. We are shifting to US based fields is a common one, but when you look they have bought options to consider buying or leases rather than the asset.

That is key no buying only renting. You rent assets when the asset value is about to take a hit. And the total US Proven reserves does not add up to what has been sold.

Shell has been on a massive divestment strategy on its oil field assets, from Africa to the Far East for the last 12 months, or since Rossi did his first demonstration this time last year.
http://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/news/newsshell-divests-stake-nigerian-oil-asset

Other Fossil Fuel companies on a divestment strategy are BP who are selling their stakes in fields in the North Sea, Russia, the Arctic and the Gulf to name but a few and not even batting an eyelid about being refused license to buy future assets in the Gulf.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20527045

This year has been an Oil Field Night of the Long Knives as all the major players have been dumping these soon to be seriously downgraded assets.

The price per barrel dropped 20+ dollars since May.

I expect the real drop to be when the 60 day and 30 Day options on the price per barrel get shorted when the Rossi announcement is about to be made. I expect the price per barrel will drop below 70. Then it will resurge as people realise LENR will not happen overnight.

Then Oil and other fossil fuels will go into a long decline with investors on a business decline strategy making money out of the asset stripping and running the oil fields into the ground. Natural Gas will be the longest lived of the Fossil Fuel assets.

Coal might die out out in as little a year and a half as converting coal power plants to use Rossi's Hot Cat or other LENR tech will be very easy. Oil will be next. Converting all power plants could take a 5 to 7 years but the fact that President Obama changed the Law to allow Combined Heat and Power means that many plants will end up being scrapped before they can convert, as faster cheaper more nimble competitors will create power plants on customers door steps, that provide power at a tenth but theoretically at up to one thousandth of the cost.

With regard to Nuclear and Green power the same applies Siemans dropped all their Nuclear industry like a hot potato after September 2011 others followed suit. Siemans also dropped their $33bn green business.